Kuala Lumpur: Sheena Pimentel, Head of Corporate PR at Forest Interactive, joined as one of the panelists in the Regional Spotlight Asia session of the United Nations Global Compact Target Gender Equality LIVE 2022 event on March 15, 2022.
Hosted by Jamshed Kazi, Country Representative and Liason to ASEAN at UN Women, Sheena spoke alongside Dr Alka Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD), Director (Human Resources) at ONGCArup, and Veve Hitipeuw, CEO and Principal Consultant at Kiroyan Partners.
Target Gender Equality LIVE is an event that brings business representatives from across the globe together with leaders from government, civil society, academia, and the United Nations to discuss how the private sector can disrupt bias and unlock women’s leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation to tackle the world’s greatest challenges.
One of the subjects discussed during the event was about untethering the full potential of women and girls across the globe, which could eventually contribute to more than USD12 trillion to the global GDP, drive remarkable positive impacts on business productivity, improve the bottom line, and support families and communities around the world.
“To advance gender equality across the region and beyond, I encourage all companies to sign up to the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). The WEPs are a set of seven principles launched by the UN Global Compact and UN Women that companies can commit to advance gender equality across the workplace, marketplace, and communities”, said Jamshed.
The event also included a range of stimulating discussions surrounding the WEPs and practical business examples from the UN Global Compact’s Target Gender Equality Accelerator program, which is active in over 40 countries.
“We have always stood our ground about gender equality in the workplace. Even our senior management comprises of 70 percent women. In the office, we always encourage all talents of all genders. We are also monitoring every single aspect that we do and the impact it has, and not just merely based on numbers and statistics but also being a role model in the industry which will impact more lives”, shared Sheena, when asked about what incentivized Forest Interactive to commit to gender equality publicly at such a critical point in time while the world has been dealing with a pandemic and multiple crises.
The WEPs, coupled with the Gender Gap Analysis Tool, provide companies with a holistic roadmap to advance gender equality across the workplace, marketplace, and community.
“I remember when I came across the WEPs way back in 2010. I took it as an agenda that at least all organizations should understand it, and we came up with a customized version abiding with the principles. When we signed up for that, all of us were totally on board with it. We realized we need more empowerment for women in the workplace”, said Dr Alka.
Through facilitated performance analysis, capacity building workshops, peer-to-peer learning and multi-stakeholder dialogue at the country-level, the Target Gender Equality Accelerator program will support companies engaged with the UN Global Compact in setting and reaching ambitious corporate targets for women’s representation and leadership.
“As a consulting firm we always advertise to our clients to set specific goals and targets because we believe that these will help us to get to a place where we want to be in the future. Target becomes our direction and it also functions as our evaluation as well,” commented Veve, when asked about her organization’s targets and main strategy when it comes to gender equality and women’s leadership.
“When we signed up for the WEPs, it provided management with the idea that we’re still lacking in certain aspects. It’s also important that we make them understand and take action, especially male members of the team, to become allies and be a part of the discussion, not only in the workplace but also in real life. The more we lead them in the right direction, the more they grasp the vast difference between male and women roles in the industry”, added Sheena, when asked about ways to engage male leadership to move the needle on gender equality.
Forest Interactive first became a UN Global Compact member in 2018, and continued with a renewal in 2020. Since then, the company has signed on to be a signatory of the WEPs and was second runner-up at the UN Women 2021 Malaysia WEPs Awards for Community Engagement & Partnerships.
About Forest Interactive
Founded in 2006, Forest Interactive develops scalable mobile platforms to connect mobile operators, content providers, and game publishers with their subscribers. With over 15 years of industry experience, Forest Interactive has expanded to include a diverse workforce of 20+ nationalities in 16 regional offices.
Delivering content subscription services, digital voucher and e-commerce platforms, and mobile apps for all ages, Forest Interactive operates in more than 30 countries, servicing 90+ mobile operators and 100+ content partners with the capacity to reach over one billion subscribers worldwide. To learn more, visit forest-interactive.com.
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